


a feeling for something lost

by alpacas



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, absolutely no warnings, but not much pre-canon, character study WITH A TWIST, except that i don't know how to write molly or anyone in this story actually, not even an errant swear word, not really but kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 06:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacas/pseuds/alpacas
Summary: Besides: Molly's always liked checking out apothecaries and healer's huts. Call it a hobby. Podunk towns like this, the healers get bored. Start experimenting with their cures. You never know what might be tucked behind the counter. [pre-campaign]





	a feeling for something lost

**Author's Note:**

> i have NO FUCKING IDEA HOW TO WRITE ANYONE IN THIS FIC, but i sure had fun trying!

The door is painted the blue of robin's eggs and June skies, and a little bell rings when it is pushed open, swinging on a red ribbon in the wake of the movement. "Charming," says Molly. "Absolutely charming, this place."

Yasha doesn't respond; he doesn't expect her to. She doesn't need to. She's been sneezing for two days now, since they pulled in to this backwater village, a farming town in the sunshine of early fall, ripe wheat and grasses filling the air. She said she was fine. Molly had said, sure, but no one's much intimidated by a sneezing bouncer.

Besides: he's always liked checking out apothecaries and healer's huts. Call it a hobby. Podunk towns like this, the healers get bored. Start experimenting with their cures. You never know what might be tucked behind the counter.

In this shop, for example: tucked behind the counter is a little Halfling boy, tiny and adorable up on a stool with mussed brown hair, freckles on tanned skin, using one hand to gallop a fine red wooden horse up and down the countertop.

"Adorable," Molly says when the boy freezes, looks wide-eyed at him and then behind him at Yasha, then back to him. He wonders, sincerely, who the kid is more frightened of. He's never liked children much, except for their honesty. Sure, this one is looking at him like he's a devil made purple and charming, but at least the kid doesn't know to lie about it. "You the owner here?"

"Daddy!" the boy calls out, his head turning to a door in the back, slightly ajar — not painted to match the front. He hops off his stool and vanishes entirely behind the counter, darts from behind it to the same door, which he yanks open, vanishing behind.

Yasha lingers awkwardly in the doorway. "Don't take it personally," Molly advises her. He takes the moment to examine a table cluttered with bottles: they're all roughly a uniform size, but the contents vary: some with liquids of various hues, some with powders or mixtures of dried herbs. All are labeled simply, marked by the same tidy handwriting in blue ink. _COLDS_ , reads one. _FEVER_ , reads another. Another table is piled with bolts of cloth, half un-dyed and half brilliantly colored. A row of shelves contain things more suited to a farm: pest killer, weed killer, that sort of thing. It's all very tidy, and _dreadfully_ practical.

Yasha examines a large-ish bottle filled with dried flower buds. Molly tries to peek into the next room the boy had run into, but just then the kid comes back, clutching his horse, accompanied by a plain Halfling man with a pleasant, friendly face — "You must be daddy," Molly says with a smirk, amusing himself.

The shopkeeper barely smiles, bemused. "I'm the owner, yes. Sorry for the wait. How can I help you?"

"Your finest remedy for allergy sneezing, if you would be so kind," Molly says, gesturing towards Yasha. She is easily double the man's size, and the boy stares up at her, transfixed.

"Of course," the man says smiling. His eyes also flicker up and over Yasha, whose head nearly hits the beams of the shop — the ceilings are low enough that even Molly feels a bit cramped — but the shopkeeper's smile doesn't falter. "We do a good business this time of year… let me see." He turns to the shelves filling the wall behind the counter.

The boy is still staring at Yasha. "What's your horse's name?" Molly asks him.

The boy looks over to him dubiously. "Red," he says.

"A fine name for a fine steed." Molly smiles.

The boy hesitates. "What are you?" he asks.

"I'm a performer with the carnival," Molly says, knowing the boy was looking for his race, not his profession. "The Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities!" The boy's blue eyes go wide. Molly's grin widens. "We're in town tonight and tomorrow only. It's dangerous and scary and a thrill beyond any you've ever yet known!"

The boy's excitement had been growing up until the word _dangerous_. "I don't like scary things," he says.

"It's just an expression," his father says gently, coming back to the counter and putting a hand on the boy's head. He smiles over at Molly. "I was thinking of taking him as a treat."

"And a treat it would be! Yasha, dear —?"

Yasha steps forward, producing a flyer, and surprises Molly a bit by crouching down low on her knees in front of the boy to hand it to him. Even on her knees, she towers over the child, but her expression is gentle. By her standards, at least. "It's a lot of fun, you know? There's… scary that isn't really scary."

The boy cautiously takes the flyer from her, his mouth sounding out the word _Moondrop_. "How come you're so big?" he asks Yasha.

"I… I don't know. I just am."

The boy looks up at his father as if to check on Yasha's answer. When his father smiles back, there's a pain in his expression that even Molly can pick up on. There's a story here, and he can feel it.

"Maybe we'll go. Would you like that?"

The kid still seems undecided.

"Chance of a lifetime! Excitement, fun, daring acts and brilliant performances!" Molly says. He's not really here to sell the carnival, he's still waiting on that allergy medicine… but he has sort of a hunch, a tickle in the back of his head, and he's starting to come around on this kid. Boys that age shouldn't be scared of carnivals and tall women and Tieflings. He feels sorry for him.

"How much are tickets?" the apothecarist asks Molly.

"Two silver for the kid, four for you." Molly glances over at the bottle of allergy medicine, still on the counter. "Maybe we can work out some kind of deal. How much for the remedy?"

"Three silver."

"How about for this?" Yasha asks softly, standing back up, still holding the jar of budded flowers.

"What _is_ that, I'm dying to know," Molly adds.

"Soak with it in warm water and it will relax your body and your mind. Pour hot water over it and you can drink it as a tea for the same effect. One silver for the bottle." Yasha examines it closely as he speaks.

"A bargain," says Molly. "I'll take it. If you have something amusing you can throw in for another two silver, you have yourself carnival tickets for the evening."

The Halfing smiles, amused, but his expression never quite seems to meet his eyes unless he's looking at his son. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, anything. Anything _fun_." Molly scans the shelves over the shopkeeper's head: the bottles behind the counter are marked less clearly and more varied in size and color: the expensive or rare items, probably. The _interesting_ ones. He even spots a few items that he thinks might count as alchemical or magical in nature, but he's no expert. "What about that?" Molly asks, pointing at a tiny red bottle for no reason besides the color catching his eye.

"That?" the shopkeeper turns and looks and then looks back, his expression tight. "That's acid, I'm afraid. Not very interesting."

"Are you kidding? The mere fact that you carry it is interesting. Is it a pesticide?"

"It's more potent than that." The shopkeeper's smile is very strained now. "And I'm afraid it sells for a bit more than two silver."

"How much?"

"Twelve gold."

"Ooh." Molly thinks about it; he does have that much, and the challenge makes him want it more… but no. He honestly can't think of a thing he could do with a bottle of acid, and what if it broke and ruined his clothes? "A shame," he says. He looks back over at the bottle. "Say, how much for just the bottle?"

"Just the empty bottle?"

"That's right," Molly says. "I'm partial to that red color. Brings out my eyes, you know. Throw in an empty bottle and a couple more dried flowers for my lovely friend here, and you have you and your son carnival tickets for the evening."

"I can't refuse a deal that good," the Halfling man says, smiling, after a moment's thought. He fetches a bottle from the other room, and helps Yasha pick out a few medicinal flowers — lavender from the river banks, to soothe and help sleep; coneflower to prevent illness, gathered from the fields nearby.

"I never knew they had so many uses," Yasha murmurs.

"Plants and flowers are amazing," the shopkeeper says. "They heal and bring comfort, and of course they're beautiful. Even weeds can cure and be lovely."

"Thank you," she says sincerely, and the man smiles up at her.

They thank the shopkeeper and say goodbye to the little boy. "We'll see you tonight, yeah?" Yasha asks, now apparently quite taken with the shop and its owners.

"See you tonight!" the boy says, and she smiles a little bit.

It warms the heart, really. "Magic and wonder await," Molly says with a wink and a wave. Outside the shop, he hands Yasha her flowers and her allergy medicine.

"Not too bad, not too bad," Molly murmurs, examining his bottle, pleased with his little souvenir. It's only the length of his smallest finger, but made of fine red glass, catches the light when he holds it up, and embossed with a flower of its own, the mark of the shop, accompanied by some tiny writing. Perhaps he can fill it with a potion — or claim it to be. It's the sort of bottle that would make even river water seem mysterious.

"Not bad at all," he says happily. "We'll have to come back if we're ever swing through this place again."

"Yes," says Yasha. "I liked that shop."

"You know, I think I did too?" He squints at the tiny letters on his bottle. "'Brenatto Apothecary.' A name to remember," he says cheerfully, tucking it into his coat as they walk back to the carnival.

**Author's Note:**

> so. um. in episode 4 matt mentions the place the carnival had been just before trostenwald was felderwin, and i.


End file.
